Graded hurling competitions give all counties chance to shine

This weekend the hurling championship begins – not the high-profile, senior matches that will attract significant crowds from the Easter weekend onwards but the now established graded competitions that throw in this Saturday and Sunday.

The brainchild of former president Seán Kelly’s Hurling Development Committee, the Ring and Rackard Cups were introduced for the 22 counties not involved in the MacCarthy Cup.

Over the passage of time, further levels have been added at either end. The Rackard was superseded as the entry grade by the introduction in 2008 of the Lory Meagher.

“There was too much of a gap between the best and worst teams in the Ring and Rackard,” according to Nickey Brennan, who was GAA president at the time. Nine years later, a new second-tier championship, the Joe McDonagh was introduced to raise the standard of what was now effectively an ante chamber for the MacCarthy Cup and its provincial round robins.

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Brennan believes t the grades are now working really well all levels.

“They have been very good and structured in such a way that they cater for the counties so that within the Ring, Rackard and Meagher competition has been fairly even. It means a number of games at a decent time of year and an opportunity to do a bit of training with the carrot at the end of the day, a possible final in Croke Park.”

The opportunity to play a final at GAA headquarters has operated to give great profile to counties whose football teams, as he points out, wouldn’t get the same chance to play in the GAA’s biggest stadium.

All told, 26 counties have reached the final of one of these graded championships.

One of the recurrent gripes about the championships is the lack of media coverage. Brennan sympathises but says that this is not realistic given the tightness of the scheduling under the new split season calendar.

“The reality is this. The way the national league has been condensed into a few weeks, what you’re getting for those counties is minimal coverage. That’s not going to change because it’s one of the consequences of the changed calendar in our competitions with the first six months for counties and the second for clubs.

“You’re going to get condensed coverage when the provincial round robins and the football start. Media have only so much space. It’s happening at the climax to the Premiership season and the European Cup in rugby. Golf is at its height. I feel sorry for national journalists because it’s feast and then famine from the end of July.”

Invest money

At last Monday’s launch of the latest phase of the GAA’s strategy plan, one of the ambitions was to invest money in Division Two and Three hurling counties. This is not always about intercounty activity but about encouraging players at a recreational level.

“To be fair,” says Brennan, “and going back to Joe McDonagh’s time all the way up to the launch of the latest strategic plan during the week, there has been no problem with the amount of money put into hurling. It’s been significant in terms of grants for coaching and equipment subsidies. Funding for hurling has never been an issue.

“It’s not going to produce All-Ireland champions from a county that’s never won a senior provincial title but it gives an opportunity for many to participate, to play cross-county and cross-provincial competitions and Martin Fogarty [former national director of hurling] did a great job in that regard.

“Take Naas in Kildare who won the intermediate All-Ireland. They’ve been playing under-age in Kilkenny for quite some time and last year reached the minor A final. They could have won it but Dicksboro were just a slight bit better. There are also teams from Laois and Carlow.

“Elsewhere in say, Sligo, you have the Táin leagues and the Celtic challenge, which afford young players an opportunity to play in a high-level environment. They get enjoyment out of it and hopefully that sustains their interest in playing adult intercounty competitions.”

The Ring, Rackard and Meagher cups begin this weekend and will continue up until their All-Ireland finals are played on the weekend of May 21st and 22nd.